Mark of the Master
by Atolm2000
Summary: Chapter 5. Out of the cell, but not out of the woods...
1. Never Get Cocky

Weeeellll, this is a bit of a departure for me, I s'ppose...let's just say this game ate my brain over the holidays, and the characters crawled into my brain, set up living quarters, and demanded that I write something. Given that this crew weren't the only characters-belonging-to-other-people to do so over the holidays, I think I had a spate of various characters taking advantage of my brain-dead state over vacation to move in and do the same. (BTW...I AM trying to get damn Legend of Mana request fic done...The problem being, my copy of the game, book, etc, were borrowed and not returned. Yes, it has been months and more. I apologize and you may whack me muchly with Lady Blackpearl's Baka-Mallet-O-Doom.) 

*****

_We Coopers have always prided ourselves on being the best thieves there were - the definition of masters. And our specialty has always been robbing the rich, corrupt, and criminal; the first Cooper back in old Babylon wrote on the first page of the Thievius Raccoonus that the mark of a true master thief was to be able to steal from other thieves. We've also had a second thing that's gone hand in hand with it, something Clockwerk had called a weakness -a bit of empathy. Long before Robin Hood's granddad was born, the Coopers had the gig of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor down pat, and we avoid killing. We're thieves, not murderers, and besides, only amateurs really need to kill marks to silence them. In more than one era we've earned at least some respect from the law. They're doing their jobs, after all, and the ones that're dedicated enough to chase us aren't that different from us - dedicated to mastering their profession, outdoing, outwitting, and outmaneuvering others. Besides, a law officer that'll go after us likely is neither rich nor corrupt and certainly not criminal. _

After beating Clockwerk, I'd thought I'd made record time on living up to the Cooper legacy - I'd earned back the Thievius Racoonus and mastered all its secrets in the course of beating the worst crooks the world could offer. I almost forgot one lesson that every one of my ancestors had in their personal teachings - no matter how good you are, never ever get cocky.

Two months after Clockwerk was beaten, things had settled back into a comfortable routine - the van waiting on the edge of an area of New York skyscrapers, Murray slumped over the wheel in boredom, Bentley fretting over the com about various unnecessary risks, and Sly, finished with his heist, teasing Carmelita on the rooftops. 

"Aaah, Miss Fox....I see you found a new blaster to replace the one I stole at Kraka-Kau." He ducked back behind the satellite dish he was using for cover as a burst of electricity hit it. 

"And you're not going to dodge this one like you have in the past."

He darted out from behind the dish, up a cable with blasts hitting just short of his tail all the way up, stopping behind a stairwell building on the roof; for Carmelita to aim the way she was, she had to be climbing as well, but he was a bit busy getting up the wire without getting zapped to watch. 

"I don't know, I seem to be doing a pretty good job so far, although your aim is definitely improving - I'm impressed." That said, he resumed working on catching his breath; it'd been a longer climb than he'd expected, and the pace it'd taken to dodge had been a bit more than he would've liked.

"Save your flattery, raccoon, you'll have plenty of time to talk on the way to prison."

"Prison? That's awful dark and dreary...y'know, I know this nice place on the Seine in Paris, they make the most wonderful pike in white wine with rice - fresh air, friendly service, great place for a date..." He ducked off keeping low to another hiding place, behind a steam vent.

"You're going to have a distinct lack of fresh air where you're going." That sounded a little too close for comfort, maybe even the same rooftop; however, she also sounded a bit uncertain and was headed off a bit the wrong way - she seemed to think he was still at the elevator building. If she was confused, that gave him an edge, as he slipped out invisibly to creep up behind her. 

She slid up along the wall of the elevator building, then snapped around aiming at the place where he'd been hiding, firing at empty air. She'd come from the only direction he could've run to without being in plain sight, and there didn't seem to be a way past the route she took even for someone as agile as he was. She stepped back and started scanning the area, holding the blaster down in one hand, brows furrowed as she watched for some sign of the raccoon. 

He crept up right behind her, grinning like a fool behind his invisibility - then swiped the blaster right out of her hand and ran for all he was worth, cackling and whooping as she wheeled angrily and gave chase, snarling, handcuffs already out in one hand; he dropped the blaster in his backpack, still sprinting. "Damnit, Ringtail, I hope you enjoyed that because you are never getting that close again without handcuffs on!" 

Sly abruptly stopped, turning to face her. "Hmmm...what about as close as that *last* time, eh?" 

"Definitely..." She took the last step forward, now barely a foot from him. "NOT!" She snapped out with the cuffs, then held up her right hand, as his left was now cuffed to it, teeth showing in a triumphant smile.

"Why Carmelita, I didn't know you were quite *that* way..." He manifested his best halo, not struggling with the cuffs at all.

"I'm not falling for this sort of thing again, Cooper. My blaster?"

"Ah, of course." He put his free hand back into the backpack. "But there's just one thing first..."

"What now?" She shot him a baleful glare.

Sly pulled back with his cuffed left hand, sending her abruptly stumbling forward straight into his arms, and he did the one thing she'd just sworn she wasn't falling for again - he kissed her. She stiffened at first, but then slowly relaxed, until he let go and stepped back slowly, and handed her back her blaster - with his left hand, which was no longer handcuffed. She blinked, glanced at the blaster and back at him, and realized that he was holding the handcuffs in his right hand as he backed away. 

"Oh no you don't! You're not getting away like that!" She took aim and fired, and he may as well have teleported as quickly as he was out of the path of the shot and off over the side of the roof. Carmelita ran to the side and looked over; he hadn't fallen to his death, but was instead running along the narrow ledge above the windows of the floor below, headed for a place where the building came close to another and there was a fire escape. She followed him with gunfire the whole way up, a few inches behind his tail the whole time. At the top, he leapt over the side and vanished between two towers of the building; she jumped across to the fire escape herself and started towards the gap he'd disappeared into.

"Nice badge." He was above her, on one of the roofs, holding her badge; she stared in shock, checking her back jeans pocket where it'd been - the thief was stretched out on the rooftop, holding it up to examine it. She fired, and he was gone, vanished again. "I should really return your wallet, though." Her wallet dropped to the ground next to her feet, as the shock started shifting to a snarl while she checked her other back jeans pocket, then snapped to fire at the other roof he was now speaking from; he disappeared again. "Can I keep this as a reminder of you?" He'd popped up by a steam vent ten yards ahead of her, holding her necklace. She fired off a volley, denting the steam vent and tracking him as he dropped down off the side of the building, sliding down a vertical pipe and laughing all the way. The pursuit continued at a sprint for another two blocks before he rounded a corner straight into the back of the van; the doors were still closing as she fired after him uselessly.

The van wound about several alleys and side roads to throw off any pursuit before making for the docks. Sly had settled in reclining against the wall of the van by the doors, grinning like a fool and holding up Carmelita's choker. 

"I really believe that it is a capital bad idea to spend any more time than absolutely necessary around Inspector Fox, especially when she's hunting you down - all you have to do is slip up once and you'll be in prison for longer than I really would care to calculate."

"Relax, Bentley...Carmelita's a known equation by now, and it just wouldn't be any fun to dash off without at least saying something..."

"Please tell me that you are not getting an infatuation with her." Bentley adjusted his glasses, looking down from the seat by the computer consoles in the van. 

"Aw, c'mon...I know better than to take this too seriously. Carmelita just wouldn't be Carmelita if she weren't so dedicated to her job, and I wouldn't be a Cooper if I weren't on the opposite side of the law from her." He tapped the side of the charm, watching the light from Bentley's monitors reflect off it. 

"And somehow I think that is exactly one of the things you seem attracted to. I haven't been around you this long without learning to notice a few warning signs with you, Sly." 

"Hey, if she were attainable to a thief like me, she'd be a crooked cop, and therefore a target, and not somebody I'd care to be around, and I full well know that I don't have a snowflake's chance in Hell with her; she's never going to leave her post, and if for some weird reason I go crazy and decide to give up thievery, she'd still throw me in prison for what I've already done." He flipped the choker around and it vanished as he palmed it and pocketed it. 

"That's precisely what I'm afraid of. You - " Bentley turned the chair around to face Sly fully, poking the air towards his old partner for emphasis. "Are a first class grade 'A' adrenaline junkie. You have a complex about chasing things that you logically should not be able to reach. You are obsessed with obtaining the unobtainable." The turtle leaned back in his chair, pushing his glasses back up onto his beak. "I will admit that your fearlessness has carried you through a lot of difficult missions, but in situations like this, it can only get you in trouble." 

"She hasn't slapped me yet for kissing her."

"She has shot at you more times than even I care to count."

"For thieving - not for kissing her."

Bentley shook his head. "The more I learn of your logic, the less sense it makes." 

Sly slid down the wall, laying back on the floor with his hands behind his head. "You've just got to stop thinking so pragmatically all the time - quit calculating out odds and hedging your bets and take a few gambles."

"Take too many gambles and your number will stop coming up." Bentley glanced back with one last grave stare, then hunched over at his computer screen, a familiar gesture that he was done talking.

Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox stormed back into her office, ears flattened, snarling, tail floofed and twitching behind her. The charter pilot they'd been keeping on retainer since she started chasing Sly looked up from his paper and coffee long enough to comment, "He got away again, eh?", then went back to reading, adding, "Chief wants to talk to you, says he has some change in orders from Interpol."

She sighed, grimacing, eyes closed, then tried to smooth down her tail as she walked into the back office.

The "Chief" was a German shepherd of perpetually bedraggled expression, the sort who'd seen so much that they'd wholeheartedly accepted cynicism with a sort of warped semi-contentment that things were, and always would remain, rather crappy. Leaning against the wall by the door was someone she hadn't seen before - a lanky black cat whose golden eyes peered over blood-red lensed sunglasses, dressed in an immaculate grey suit with an odd white "tie" piece, long tail drifting back and forth to the side, with the kind of straight expression that'd be perfect on an unmoving guard of Buckingham Palace. His eyes moved to track her as she entered, but otherwise he remained unmoving.

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

"I just got word from Interpol, slight change in the way things've been going. Meet Hyperion Nocturne, your new partner in the Cooper case; he arrived with the paperwork for the orders about an hour ago." 

"Wha?" She turned to the black cat, who nodded and sketched a sort of salute, expression still unchanging. "Each time I go out, I come an inch closer to catching that raccoon, and I have to be able to move quickly - anyone else would likely only confuse things." She was looking between the Chief and Hyperion.

"I've been on special cases detail for some time now; you were actually sometimes only hours ahead of me on the Fiendish Five, and while your reports were sketchy on how you managed it, it was nonetheless rather impressive. I can assure you that I'm not going to be a dead weight; I've chased shadows before." He took off the sunglasses and started cleaning the lenses with a handkerchief; they looked perfectly clean, so it was likely more of a nervous habit than anything else. "And if you dislike company, you're in for a disappointment; the People's Republic of Green Island has one of their own people after him for the theft of the Firebird Stone, a rather large ruby that was supposed to be part of some mystic seal. Nalphyr's not far behind me, and he seems far less happy to cooperate." Hyperion put the handkerchief back in his pocket and inspected his glasses; his tail tip had acquired an odd twitch, faster than its lazy swing, betraying something - she wasn't sure what. "I understand he has orders to bring Cooper in dead or alive, and that Green Island is none to happy about the five police officers that were killed in the theft of the Firebird Stone."

"The what?" 

He replaced his glasses, closing his eyes and speaking carefully and levelly. "There were five officers guarding the temple where the Firebird Stone was stored who were ambushed and murdered just after it was removed from its holder. Some security devices and Cooper's ubiquitous calling card place him as the thief, and the officers were killed with a hook-shaped blade identical to that on his cane."

"This doesn't make sense...it's not like him."

"Can we talk outside?" Hyperion turned and stalked out to a balcony off the building, Carmelita following in a daze; was this really the same thief that'd gotten angry with her for going after him while in the compound of the Panda King, not because she was chasing him but because the Panda King had recently wiped out an innocent village? The one that'd nearly died in a gas chamber saving her life, in what was a rather obvious trap? 

He leaned over the balcony and sighed, losing some of the ramrod straightness from his posture; a more pensive look tempered the stoneface. "I've done my homework on this case. You may have left his involvement out of your reports on the Fiendish Five, but you're still honest, and your file on Cooper made it quite obvious that he was instrumental in apprehending them. Something happened in Clockwerk's lair that was left out of your incredibly sketchy report on that incident, and I can only gather from my own knowledge of Clockwerk and your previous tangles with the Five that you wound up cooperating with Cooper. I understand that this is hard to accept, but I have yet to see any reasonable alternative explanation for the five deaths - and I reviewed their evidence myself, that's why I wasn't here in time to help you chase him after his theft from the museum here." His tail lashed, and he started cleaning his glasses again. "I understand what you meant about it not being like him, and I rather doubt that it was premeditated; I would guess that it was more of a hasty action, that something spooked him into doing something he may not have otherwise considered."

"Cooper doesn't spook - not in the face of far worse than five zealous cops."

"Something killed those cops, and all the evidence points to Cooper."

Inspector Fox slumped back against the wall, deep in thought. Somewhere in the confusion, she could still hear Clockwerk's mechanical voice rasping, "Empathy has always been the downfall of the Cooper Clan." Hyperion's tail was still lashing as he studied his glasses, and the ground below through the lenses. 

"...I may not have gone over the evidence in this as much as you have, but I have been pursuing Cooper closely almost since he started thieving. I have had to study his methods inside and out, and I'm sure you know yourself that pursuing a difficult catch like him requires learning how they think. I have no answer as yet to what happened, but I know some things." 

"Such as?" He looked back over his shoulder, glasses still held in one hand.

"He has built his life very much around the methods and ideals of his ancestors. The pride of his bloodline is his life. He is not fearless, cunning, cocky, and daring because he has done daunting things in the past and gotten away with it; he is so because he is a Cooper, and because to him being a Cooper means being all of those things - and it also brings with it a strange sense of honor, as so many of his ancestors gained fame by robbing the corrupt and cruel. Clockwerk even planned some almost-successful traps based not on any specific knowledge of Sly Cooper himself, but on the habit of 'empathy' he had observed in the Cooper Clan in general. I happen to know that a decent amount of his ill-gotten gains have gone into charities, and that he was the mysterious benefactor who paid several bills for the orphanage that raised him. He is many things, and is a thief through and through who laughs at the law, but one thing he is not is a murderer. If he had that kind of malice in him, the Fiendish Five would not have lived to see arrest; he got to each of them save Clockwerk before I did. They were the ones that killed his family, and if he were to have murdered anyone, it would have been them, yet he left them alive for us to capture. I will hunt him to Hell itself for his thefts and his mockery of law and justice, but I will give him respect where respect is due, and while it may be against the current evidence, I will hold the possibility that there may be another explanation for those murders." She stood straight and walked toward the door. "At any rate, he's likely headed back to France; his hideout is somewhere around there."

The trio stopped at a bakery in Paris en route to their hideout, covers snapped over the sides of the van to cover the rather distinctive markings, the gun turret pulled down into the back and hidden. Bentley and Murray were little seen enough in police reports to not have to worry about being seen; Sly had changed out of his thieving gear to more normal street clothes. They had just settled comfortably into an outdoor table when Sly became a little distracted.

To most observers, it would seem that Sly had just started focusing on his food and coffee, but for the occasional flicker of his gaze to a forbidding looking timber wolf in dark clothes across the street who was watching them. Finishing his lunch, he stood and adjusted the binoc-u-com that hung around his neck like any tourist's binoculars. "You guys go on ahead of me, I think I'm going to go for a bit of a walk." They both looked up, confused, then nodded and went back to their own more leisurely meals.

The first place Sly headed was the crowded Champs de Elysses. As he expected, the wolf followed. He headed straight through the crowds, hoping to lose the tail in the throngs of tourists and wealthy French. A few of the more wealthy looking among the crowds would doubtless later notice excess jewelry missing. He picked up the pace a bit at the broad pedestrian tunnel under the circular road, that led to the Arch de Triumph. He paused by the corner of the huge arch, confirming that the wolf was still following him. Ducking back through a tour group, he slipped into the middle of the group and walked with them through the opposite tunnel back out on the far side of the traffic circle. He boarded the tour bus with them, not really listening to the guide droning on but acting like he belonged there anyhow; glancing back as the bus pulled out, he saw the wolf snarl at the railing around the Arch.

The bus stopped close to central Paris, by the Opera house. He snuck around the bus as the tour guide started their head count. He saw the wolf, by the doors of the Opera house, looking the other way; a black sedan with a rental sticker was parked nearby. Sly ducked down an alleyway towards the inner city, away from people. 

He started up a pipe along the side of a building, pausing on a gargoyle on the ornate facade of the building; a shot rang out, sending stone chips off the gargoyle. Sly glanced back; sure enough, the wolf was in the narrow cobblestone street below, a heavy revolver in one hand.

"Halt right there, thief! In the name of the People's Republic of Green Island, surrender and return the Firebird Stone, and we might be convinced to give you leniance."

Sly turned on his perch so he was facing the wolf, still crouched down against the gargoyle so that shots would be harder to aim. "Return the stone, eh? I'm never going to turn myself in, but I have no reason to keep your ruby." A quick glance sideways, and he had a route plotted out in his head along the sides of the building, up to the rooftops, and over them to the other side of the building, where Murray waited whenever they ran into unexpected trouble in Paris. "Be back here tomorrow and I'll see to it you get the Firebird stone back; you have my word as a Cooper that the Firebird stone will be returned." Then he was off, the pistol shots ringing out the whole way as he got over the building to the waiting van.

The van drove up the only non-booby-trapped approach to the cave where they usually hid it; as it came to a stop, Sly jumped out the back, the solid gold Mayan calendar stone they'd stolen in New York under one arm. He was darting through the field that led to the nondescript abandoned train car where they lived when he suddenly stopped, flattened low, and started creeping towards his own lair - several of the hidden booby traps in the field had been tampered with, and the door of the train car hung open. 

He entered the train car in silence, cane at the ready, while Bentley and Murray waited at the edge of the field. Standing back by the wall where he'd stashed his souvenirs of the Haitian jungle was a dust grey cat with rust markings, dressed in nondescript black shirt and slacks; he was studying the Firebird Stone with half-lidded green eyes. He wore a pistol in a hip holster, and had a katana sheathed over his shoulder. 

"Ah, so the famous Cooper finally returns." He didn't even look away from the massive ruby.

"Who the Hell are you?"

"All in good time...y'see, I wanted to check something before I left - you Coopers take being able to rob other thieves as a mark of being the top of the criminal food chain, right?" He looked up straight at Sly, whose only answer was a cold glare. "Thought so. Well, in that case, I challenge you to take this back. As for my name, you can call me Macavity." In a flash, he was out the window, Sly's cane swiping thin air well clear of his tail. He stopped halfway across the field, causing Sly to pause in his pursuit. "Oh, and by the way - if this doesn't get back to its temple by the time that eclipse hits the island this year, you can consider yourself responsible for the end of civilization as we know it. No pressure though, right?" With that, several smoke mines went off around them, sending Sly into a choking fit; when it cleared, Macavity was nowhere to be seen.

"Sly!! SLYY!! Are you alright?!"

"It's OK, Bentley, I'm fine."

Bentley stopped next to him, panting. "Who...*gasp* was that anyway?"

Sly was staring at the last spot he'd seen the cat in, already with a distant look. "Said to call him Macavity."


	2. Watch What You Count On

Here we are...Chapter 2.   
Yesss...Hyperion does know some things, of course, what he does know are things he doesn't realize are connected to this ;P And until that comes up in story, I'm leaving that cryptic.   
Flu bugs are evil and need to die...I"m just thankful the world stopped wobbling ^_^.   
*****   
Hyperion and Carmelita were just coming into the Paris airport and off the charter field, when a gruff voice to one side growled, "You missed him again - I had a run in here, in this city." Carmelita twitched around.   
One of Hyperion's ears ticked, but otherwise his reaction was very calm. "Ah, Nalphyr. I take it you headed straight here from Green Island?"   
"Of course - what better place to corner him than in his home territory?"   
"You could have at least done us the favor of letting us know - we might have been able to catch him if you'd cooperated.", Carmelita snarled.   
One of Nalphyr's ears ticked. "Somehow, given your track record, I think my chances are just as good alone."   
"So Cooper is in town?" Hyperion cut in, keeping a calm tone, although he was clearly derailing the budding argument.   
"Yes. He tried to lose me on the Champs de Laissez, snuck into a tour group, and got away among the gargoyles and old buildings in the back alleys of town. He claimed he would be back to return the Firebird Stone, but I have my doubts."   
"Whether he was truthful or not, we should keep an eye on the spot he said he'd meet you at just in case. In the meantime, we need to keep track of any routes out of town he might use in case he decides to bolt."   
"I'll see what I can do with the dockmasters, if you can contact the airports; that only leaves the highways as an escape route." Carmelita was talking to Hyperion, half-ignoring Nalphyr.   
"Then I suppose I will talk to the consulate about measures to keep him from escaping that way. I am, of course, assuming that you two will keep up your ends at the docks and the airport." Nalphyr looked to each of them in turn, nodded curtly, turned, and walked away.   
"Does he try to be frustrating?"   
"He's only doing his job; he's just slightly impatient is all." Carmelita noted the unconscious tail twitch he'd picked up when Nalphyr had made himself known that hadn't died down yet. He adjusted his glasses, then took them off and started cleaning them again. "Do you think he'll show as he said?"   
"I can't entirely say...I would know for sure if Nalphyr had told me the exact words he used. If he simply said, 'sure I'll return it', I'd expect him to disappear. If he gave his word or swore upon something, then he'll be there."   
Hyperion cocked his head thoughtfully. "If he tries to bolt...which way out is he least likely to use?"   
"It depends on where he's planning to go next. He tends to vary his means of travel, although he invariably includes his van, hiring cargo carriers and such to carry it as well. Him and his partners have customized it quite a bit, and it's something of a mobile base for them. I know he has contacts at the docks; the airport would likely be easier to regulate." She paused, briefly moving to fidget with the choker that wasn't there anymore - almost a reflex. "Murray is the least cautious of their group; usually either Bentley or Sly himself deal with outside contacts. Bentley would be the hardest to pin, as he tends to work over phone and computer lines instead of speaking face to face, so that would be what to watch for - either the ringtail himself, or a charter arrangement sight unseen."   
The cat nodded. "In that case, I'll arrange for airport security to watch this avenue, and I'll find out where he said he'd show up from Nalphyr and stake it out myself. He's cocky, and if he has near as much of an honor complex as you've claimed, he'll likely make some kind of appearance - probably plotted enough to make it hard to catch, so one of us should be there in person."   
"I'll head for the docks then. Keep your cellphone on." Carmelita nodded, and walked out. 

Sly went through helping reset the traps and the security systems in a sort of daze, staring off at some point in space. When Murray asked if he was alright, he almost didn't respond, then blinked and nodded, slipping back into the distant stare. When everything was back in order, Bentley sat at his desk and set to work re-designing the base's security, while Bentley sat down only half paying attention to a video game, Sly sitting under the skull-marked sign from the Isle of Wrath, still staring off into space.   
"I suppose we know what our next target is?"   
"Eh?" Sly broke out of the trance, blinking broadly at Bentley, who'd moved his chair enough to the side to be able to see his partner around the monitor.   
"I said I take it we have a positive next target in this Macavity." Bentley pushed his glasses further up onto his beak.   
"Yeah...we need to get that stone back." Sly started. "Crud...we need to get that stone back!"   
"What's wrong?" Murray clicked off the game.   
"Some cop from Green Island collared me - that wolf that was tailing us - I gave my word I'd return the stone, since I don't have much of a use for it anyway..said I'd give it back tomorrow."   
Bentley sighed heavily. "It's already late evening. We know nothing about the person who stole it from us. There is quite simply no possible chance of getting it back and making it to your rendezvous on time, even with some miracle of luck. Also, might I say that it's a rather stupid idea to arrange a meeting with an officer that's out for your arrest - you're asking for a trap."   
"Stupid or no, I gave my word as a Cooper that the stone would be returned, and the stone will be returned."   
"The most feasible option strategically would be to simply return the stone directly to Green Island after we retrieve it from Macavity, without going to the police; they wouldn't expect us to go back there, and would be tracking us wherever we chased that feline. It would require skipping your meeting, but it was a bad idea to go in the first place."   
"I'm going to make at least an appearance...just enough to tell them there'll be a delay."   
"You're a fool Sly...I'll see what I can do to find out what they're going to have set up for you." Bentley stopped, hrrmed, adjusted his glasses, and looked closer at his screen. "Most curious..."   
"Find something?"   
"Macavity does not exist."   
"He was in the hideout. You saw him when he left."   
"The cat who stole the jewel from us most certainly exists, but Macavity, according to all records, has been around as long as the Coopers or Clockwerk...however, the descriptions are horrendously inconsistent, and it seems most likely if anything that the name is more of a buzzword alias than an actual identity; a name dropped when a criminal cat doesn't wish to give out any name or alias that could be traced back to them."   
"Only cats?"   
Bentley nodded. "Only cats."   
"There's got to be more to it than that..."   
Bentley favored Sly with a dull, dry look. "I'll chase the name 'Macavity' in due time. However, first I think it a more profitable approach in the long run to change tactics and look for someone matching the description of our fellow felon."   
Sly stood up and started pacing across the train car while Bentley focused on his searches. Sly was wearing a visible path in the dust on the floor; Murray rummaged through the fridge, setting a microwave burrito to cook. The microwave dinged, and Murray made short work of the food while Sly continued pacing. Sly stopped to adjust the balance on the neon sign from Mesa City, then resumed pacing while Murray turned back on his game, doing dismally; he was having a hard time concentrating on it. Ten more circuits of the train car later, Sly readjusted the balance on the neon sign, then nudged the plug behind some paneling so it'd be out of sight; then resumed pacing again. Murray shut off the game and pulled out a walkman, turning up the volume while trying to doze; Sly stopped to dust off one of the skulls on the skull-and-crossbones sign from the Isle of Wrath.   
"A-HAH!" The headphones were off Murray, and Sly snapped around, both of their attention fixed on Bentley. "I found his criminal record!"   
"Well?"   
"Parking violation in Tokyo."   
A breeze blew through the train car. "That's it?" Sly's tail was twitching.   
"That's it. The guy's a master at covering his tracks. A few minor accusations, but nothing's managed to stick."   
Murray drooped; Sly turned and banged his head against the train car wall between the displays for the Isle of Wrath and Mesa City.   
"It gets even more amusing...from this, I've tried to track down birth certificates, home addresses, anything."   
"And?" Sly was still slumped against the wall.   
"With enough digging, all of his records are fabrications...as far as any real investigation goes, he doesn't exist."   
"Which leaves us with?"   
"A very formidable foe."   
Sly turned, slumping with his back against the wall. "So in other words, you can't find anything?"   
"Not exactly...I can track use of some of his falsified records through airport passenger manifests, charter records, and similar...it seems he globe-trots as much as we do. Hm...There is an interesting correlation between his travels and some other affairs..."   
"Oh?"   
"Well, there's a list of unsolved crimes that seem to follow his movements. Also, there's a few cases where it seems that he used someone else's heist as cover for his own movements...huh...that's interesting..."   
"What now?"   
"In a couple of the older manifests I've pulled up, he wasn't travelling alone; it looks like he had a mentor...that one I can pin down." Bentley tapped a couple keys and waved Sly over; Sly jumped over the desk to stand over Bentley's shoulder, as Bentley pulled up a police file on a trim white cat. "Algus 'Silvermane' Bransworth. Responsible not only for some rather sizable thefts, but also a few assassinations and other, more dangerous machinations...killed while resisting arrest six years ago."   
"That's something to track down later...can you find our Macavity now?"   
Bentley tapped keys in another window; Sly counted five different windows open. "Hmm...he hasn't taken a boat or ship out of Paris; however, he could've easily driven without leaving any trail in the records, so he may still have skipped town. I can't seem to track any of his known aliases to any hotels in town, but that doesn't rule out smaller bed and breakfasts, or calling in favors, which would seem like a valid avenue given his mentor's connections."   
"Any clues to habits, patterns, preferences, quirks, anything we can take a chance on?"   
"Mmm..." He spent a minute working in three of the five windows. "Not that I can really determine. I'm afraid my information is too sketchy; he's done an impressive job of avoiding leaving a paper trail." Bentley leaned back, taking off his glasses and rubbing at his eyes. "I'll keep at this...there's an outside chance I may be able to find some lead I hadn't expected, possibly through the Silvermane angle."   
"Alright...I'm going to go for a walk around the ridge, get some fresh air." Sly left through a window, weaving a crazy zig-zag across the field avoiding booby traps by memory. 

The next morning, Bentley poked him awake, curled up in the middle of the floor on the hideout. The trash can next to Bentley's desk was brimming; the turtle had propped himself up on caffeine, working through the night.   
"I'm afraid I haven't found much; I have more openings to chase, but nothing concrete enough to be of use yet."   
Sly nodded blearily. "So no go on nailing this kitty before I deal with the cops?" Bentley shook his head; Sly pulled up, sitting.   
"On that subject, I've managed to get a few worms into their personnel rosters and other files; I'll be able to back you up from the van as usual."   
Sly nodded as Bentley handed him a mug of coffee. "Thanks, Bentley."   
"The van will be by Notre Dame instead of the usual place, just in case." Bentley walked back to his desk, then stopped. "Sly...be careful."   
"I will." 

Around noon, Sly dashed in over the rooftops, ducking down building ledges and along a couple power lines. He paused now and then to peek about through the binoc-u-com, confirming the locations of the various police that were arrayed out to catch him. It was a rather impressive setup.   
"Sly - do you read me?"   
"Of course I do, Bentley."   
"There's one thing that worries me...I can't locate the officer who's spearheading this."   
"Carmelita?"   
"No...her new partner. Be on the lookout for a black cat in a suit; I haven't finished digging up data on him, but he was just transferred to the case."   
"Seven years bad luck...good thing I'm not superstitious. That wolf around anywhere?"   
"No...according to the police database, the agent from Green Island is trolling the highways looking for us. They've got the airport nailed down too, and Carmelita's got a team at the docks...they don't want us leaving the city."   
"This could be interesting."   
Sly clicked off the binoc-u-com, then made a quick dart down to the same gargoyle he'd talked to Nalphyr from.   
"I can't return the Firebird Stone right now; some creep calling himself Macavity swiped it, and I have to get back from him first." There were the clicks of many rifles and blasters being trained on him. "Geez, bit of overkill...", he muttered. "The stone will be returned, on my honor as a Cooper."   
"Macavity doesn't exist." Sly snapped around to look behind him; standing in the window of the abandoned apartment, not four feet from him, was the very black cat Bentley had warned him about, standing calm and stoic, with a light pistol in one hand. "And this is about more than the stone; you have many more thefts to account for, and the lives of five law officers of the Republic of Green Island."   
The accusation hit him like a pile of concrete out of nowhere. "Lives...wha?"   
"During the theft of the Firebird Stone, five officers were murdered. You are the lone suspect."   
Sly pulled his jaw back into place. "Murdered?"   
"Yes." The cat's tail was lashing, as he levelled a glare that could have melted titanium.   
"I didn't kill those officers, and I will return the stone." He dashed off to the side, trailed by gunfire, until Nocturne called a halt, and ran out along the ledge after him itself. Sly darted straight up a rain gutter; had he looked back, he would've seen Hyperion blanche slightly, then continue pursuit. Sly was barely off the pipe when it broke off the wall, sending a very surprised Inspector Nocturne two stories down to the ground. Hyperion managed to land with some measure of dignity, as Cooper's tail vanished over a rooftop a block down. Hyperion found himself gaining a great deal of respect for Carmelita and what she put up with, as he set up calls over radio and cellphones to bring Carmelita and Nalphyr out to cut Sly off. 

Sly made a breathless dash across the rooftops of Paris, acting more on mechanical reflex than paying attention. Murder? He'd avoided being even seen by the officers, had gone through the entire heist without a fight. Something was seriously wrong here; someone else had interfered, killing the cops and framing him. He almost choked and slipped on a ledge as he remembered Bentley's words - using other thefts as covers for his own dealings...Macavity had been on his tail on Green Island, had been there during the theft, and had to be the one responsible for the deaths, and he'd stake his cane on it.   
He glimpsed the blue van across the Seine; dashed down the side of the building, across the bridge, then screeched to a halt in front of Notre Dame as Carmelita dashed in from the other side. Darting sideways, he went straight up the gargoyles on the wall of the great cathedral, up to the rooftop where he crouched down, scanning to find a way out, as a familiar black rental car pulled in and stopped.   
The wolf proved to be a better climber than Sly expected. Nalphyr scrambled up the gargoyle-lined ledge, standing and taking aim - to find Sly standing resolutely, seemingly undisturbed by the heavy revolver that was trained dead center on his face.   
"I didn't kill those cops."   
"Who did then?", Nalphyr snarled, not buying it.   
"Macavity."   
"Doesn't exist. An old wives' tale used to scare rookies and excuse incompetence."   
"If you truly believe that I killed your comrades, look me in the eye, call me a liar, and shoot me."   
Nalphyr glared down the muzzle of the revolver at the young thief, cold green eyes meeting brown; there was no fear nor guilt there, but an odd wounded pride and a self-righteous resolve he wouldn't have expected of a thief. He pulled back the hammer of the revolver, never once breaking the staredown. It thudded into place with an ominous, heavy 'click'; Sly didn't flinch or tense in the slightest.   
"Liar.", Nalphyr growled.   
Then there was a shot, and Sly buckled at an impact from behind, blacking out on the image of burning green eyes and the barrel of a revolver.   
*****   
I considered continuing this chapter a bit further...but sadism won out. ^_^ (It being spring break now, I shouldn't take too much time before I update again; if the sudden stop is bugging you, check the last passage over carefully...)   



	3. Busted

Slightly shorter chapter this time, more for the sake of getting as far as I'd planned on here - next bits are going to take long enough that they should be separate chapters.   
*****   
Bentley shut off the binoc-u-com one way that let him keep track of Sly, muttering, "No, no, no, fool, no...", slumping forward against the monitor. Murray, sporting his own part of the network, said, "He's alright!"   
Bentley turned in his chair, staring at Murray as if the hippo had sprouted a pair of tentacles.   
"No really - Carmelita got him with the stun blaster's all, an' it looks like she's arguing with that wolf!"   
The shock turned into a brief bit of celebration in the turtle's mind; the worst hadn't happened. Then he spotted a figure in a grey suit at the intersection ten yards away, looking straight at them intently and talking on a radio; somehow, his gaze met Hyperion's briefly.   
"Murray - full reverse, bootleg, and floor it!"   
"But Sly -"   
"We can't break him out of jail if we're there too!", Bentley snapped; Murray nodded and floored it, throwing the van into a backward spin and then neatly pulling out of it down a side street, while Bentley braced in his chair. Murray went zig-zagging insanely though Paris, down narrow side streets, pulling off things no one would've believed a van could accomplish. 

His head hurt, there was the sort of uncomfortable tingling sensation all over as if he'd just stuck a fork in a light socket, and his limbs felt heavy. There was an obnoxious loud rumbling noise that made the headache all the worse, to boot. After a bit of thought, he realized that some of the weight was a rather elaborate mess of handcuffs, chains, and restraints. He decided it was a good idea to try cracking his eyes open, then retracted that idea at the stab of light. Of course, he was never one to let himself be beaten that easily, so he kept trying until he managed to peek a crack without blinding himself. He could sorta see everything around him as a grey blur, with a red blur in front of him; as it cleared, a grey hazy blur was between him and the red blur. The red blur was vaguely person-shaped, with a bushy side blur that had to be tail off one side. He unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth.   
"Car..melita?"   
"Finally awake, Ringtail." Two plus two equaled busted. "You are one of the most stupidly fearless people I have ever met - you do realize that Nalphyr would've killed you, correct?"   
"Why are you working with that psycho anyway?" His vision was starting to clear, fairly quickly now that he was awake.   
"Nalphyr was put on this case by Green Island on special assignment."   
"Lovely." He glanced to both sides; small room, curved walls, a back wall with a heavy door. "Flying me out somewhere?"   
"Yes. Jotunheim Prison, in the North Sea. The World Court in the Hague is working through which country will be trying you, seeing as how you've committed major thefts in more countries than most people know by name."   
"Really...they're fighting over me? I'm flattered." He sounded almost cheerful.   
Carmelita's ears ticked down as she either muttered or growled, shaking her head, he couldn't tell which. "You act almost as if you haven't been caught."   
"The real question is, how long am I going to stay caught?"   
"Har har. I'm giving the entire place a *personal* once-over, with every once I've ever learned of your tricks, and Jotunheim will be no easy trick in itself - it's become known as the new Alcatraz."   
"Ooo, a challenge." His ears perked. Carmelita raised one eyebrow, sighed, and hunched over, apparently intent on personally keeping an eye on him the whole way there. "So...are you going to be keeping up watch like this often?"   
"If that's what it takes to keep you in prison."   
"Sticking around just might be worth it for the pleasure of your company."   
Her ears went flat as she slumped forward, muttering something unintelligible under her breath. The door clicked shut behind Hyperion. "Is this how things always go?"   
"Well, usually I'm not in handcuffs, but yeah, pretty much." Hyperion blinked a little that the reply didn't come from Carmelita.   
"Yes...unfortunately." She buried her head in her hands and returned to muttering.   
"Aww...that's awful harsh, Carmelita."   
"Nothing fazes you, does it?"   
Sly stopped, cocked his head thinking. "Nope...Not that I can think of, not really, no."   
"It doesn't bother you that you're in restraints normally reserved for the criminally insane, en route to a prison which no one has escaped from?"   
"Yet."   
One of the cat's ears twitched, slightly. "You're right, Inspector Fox...he is nuts."   
"So, you're Carmelita's new partner?" Sly didn't seem impressed, and Hyperion knew he was being studied.   
"Yes." Where Carmelita had her head buried in her hands and was still muttering unintelligibly, in a mish-mash of languages, he was still keeping his usual stoneface.   
"I hear you were the one assigned to chasing the Fiendish Five."   
"You're well-informed."   
"You were pretty far behind on that one."   
"Interesting to hear, considering that much of the information in the file you stole to track them down came from my investigation." Another ear twitch, and the tip of his tail was twitching.   
"So you already knew?" Cooper was giving him an incredulous look. "Damn, you WERE behind."   
"Do you always try to be annoying?" Ear-tick, and a glare down through his sunglasses.   
"I just call things as I see them. And you had plenty of time to get there before I did."   
"I also had paperwork to chase and a case of corruption to take care of that was making the paperwork and red tape far worse - you were after the Five...I was working to bring down their entire empire. You just chased their hideouts, I was tracking down all of their areas of influence."   
"So I made your work easier."   
Hyperion took a deep, irritated breath, tail fitzing, the ear tick getting a bit more pronounced. "I still have work to do on that case, but your little stunt on Green Island attracted enough attention for me to get transferred to assist on this case as well."   
"So in other words, you have more important things to do that you're not doing."   
"That...will be quite enough, Ringtail." Carmelita had recovered from her grumblings, and was glaring up at him over her arms thrown over one knee as she perched on the crate lashed in the middle of the plane deck. The crate shifted, forcing her to move to keep her balance, as Hyperion shifted his weight; Sly didn't really have to worry much about moving. The plane was banking in for a landing. 

Some of the restraints were removed when he was moved into a cell somewhere underground, but not all of them; there were still chain-handcuffs with a good six inches between them on his hands and feet. The metal bars (he noted that there was only three inch spaces) were clicked shut, then the guard turned a key as a light blinked - a layer of criss-crossing lasers. Not all the lenses blinked of lasers, which probably meant motion sensors as well, spaced pretty evenly between, and cameras more than likely. Just outside that, a layer of some kind of tough plexiglass was lowered.   
"Again with the obsessive security." There was a sort of continual intercom, a small grate built into one wall inside with some kind of connection to a similar small grate on the outside; probably linked speaker sets and microphones.   
"You're not getting out of here, Cooper Raccoon."   
He leaned back, pulled an inch-across rubber superball out of the back sole of one of his boots, and started bouncing it off the wall.   
Carmelita glanced to Hyperion, whispering, "I thought we searched him more thoroughly than that..."   
"We'll just have to make sure he's kept under constant surveillance...and searched again." The two inspectors nodded to the guard, who walked off where Sly couldn't see - probably a control booth - then they turned and left themselves, both sparing glances back to check, as if not sure he'd still be there. There was a temptation to pull the invisibility trick to mess with their minds, but he didn't want to let them know he could do that just yet, so he kept to playing with the ball, mind already clicking over ways to dismantle the security devices.   
*****   
The Hague, Paris, etc. are all based off a few years living in Europe...Jotunheim and Green Island are pure fabrications. (Of course, Jotunheim..snrrgh...the initial temptation was to name it Niflheim, since THAT was the place in Norse myth that was both the realm of the dead and where the creatures of evil were imprisoned...buuuuttt decided to avoid the obvious FFVII parallel, and the home of the frost giants seemed to work just as well.) 


	4. All in the Timing

My apologies for the long delay - Finals week, a computer virus eating my hard drive, and two moves shot down a lot of my writing, and I've had to work whenever I get the chance just to make up the lost ground.  As it stands now, I'm still in the midst of finding a stable place to stay for the summer.  I've just re-acquired my copy of the game, and I'm in a hotel, still kinda in transit, but I'll be here for a while.

*****

The charter plane touched down in Green Island, Carmelita already shifting her backpack to get off, Hyperion drowsing, and Nalphyr grumping in the back; he'd been muttering off and on during the entire nine hour flight that they should be staying around Jotunheim to make sure Cooper stayed put.  A black sedan sent by the Republic met them on the tarmac to take them to the temple.

Green Island was a small place, the city and its environs covering most of the tiny equatorial island.  Palms and tropical trees shifted lazily in the light breeze, and Hyperion found himself once more suffering in long sleeves, long slacks, and black fur, where neither Nalphyr nor Carmelita seemed bothered; the cat straggled along behind them silently.  Open, spread out buildings made up much of the city, with open air cafes and restaurants shaded by canopies; the temple was impossible to miss when they got close, a huge complex of carved stone covered in avian gargoyles that seemed a hybrid of European and Aztec styles, the outer walls coated in reliefs of men and firebirds battling demons.

            They were met at the gate by an old iguana, his spines and frills drooping around his red and gold robes; he was tailed by a young rat in similar but less ornate garb.  Nalphyr bowed deep enough to almost drop to one knee.  The old iguana nodded.

            "Thank you, Sir Nalphyr."  He turned to Carmelita and Hyperion.  "Hyperion...and you must be Lady Carmelita Fox."

            They nodded, as Carmelita glanced up from flipping through a file.  "And you would be Bishop Inigo?"

            "Indeed."

            "It says there was three minutes and twenty-six seconds, thereabout, between the alarm on the stone going off and Officer Nalphyr witnessing Cooper's escape."

            "That seems like about the right figure, yes."

            "May I see the room the Firebird stone is kept in, and the place where the officers were killed?"

            Inigo blinked and cocked his head.  "Of course.  I'm not sure what you're looking for, both Nalphyr and Hyperion have been through here rather thoroughly."

            He led them through long open halls, gardens, and courtyards, pointing out the garden where the fight had occured, then into a huge vaulted chamber behind locked brass double doors.  

           The vaults and columns of the cieling went up past stained glass windows and pigeon roosts.  The room widened out; the far wall was almost fifty feet across, covered in concentric rings of sigils and designs, with an empty circular slot in the center that spit sparks despondently.  The wall was flanked by two huge Aztec-looking firebird gargoyles.  

            Hyperion and Nalphyr flanked the doors, waiting.  Carmelita paused, examining the sigils.

            "These don't look Aztec or European..."

            "They're Enochian - the writing of the angels."

"And the doors were found locked?"

"Yes...it seems he did a rather good job of making it look like he didn't come through here."

She was staring up at the vaults.  "I doubt that he used the door at all."

"Come again?"

She knelt down, laying out maps and photos from the file.  "The timing is off here, and it isn't his style to just go through the front door...I doubt he even went through those doors; they were probably never unlocked."

"So how do you propose that he got in and out?", Nalphyr muttered, by the door.

"Simple."  She looked over to Inigo, draping the stopwatch's lanyard over her neck.  "Close and lock the door."

"Come again?"

"Close and lock it - I'm going to test something."

The old priest raised an eye-crest, shrugged, and pulled the huge doors shut, clicking the heavy old lock.  "There."

Carmelita stared up for another minute, went through a few stretches, then hit the stopwatch.  The moment it clicked, she was off; from the floor to the heads of the gargoyles, to perch precariously on the wingtips, then up the vaulted columns in a streak, disappearing out the pigeon lofts.  Inigo scrambled to open the doors again, and the menagerie tumbled out, barely keeping up with her as she ran a rooftop obstacle course, taking cables that daunted pigeons and finding landing spots for jumps that were little more than spire points on towers.  She hit the ground outside the wall and sprinted to just past where the van had been parked during the robbery, screeching to a stop and hitting the watch.  "Three minutes, sixty four seconds, and never even in the wing of the temple where the officers were killed.  If you wish, I can take the route you deduced, but from the maps I can already tell you that it would take Cooper about six minutes, almost double what he actually made."   

Inigo was against the wall, panting in a slump; Hyperion had given up and was taking off his suit jacket, utterly overheated after the mad dash.  Nalphyr had one hand on the wall, taking his own breather.  

"Are you sure the raccoon could make that insane dash?"  Nalphyr sounded almost disbelieving.

"Both of you lost him in Paris on the same stretch of buildings because he pulled stunts like that right in front of you.  I learned that from following him these past few years."

"So if Cooper was nowhere near the spot...who killed the five police?"  Her partner had draped his jacket over one arm, more bedraggled than she'd ever seen him.  

"That I can't say...Nalphyr, when you confronted him, didn't he say something about that?"

Nalphyr growled, ears ticking back.  "Yes.  He said it was Macavity."

Hyperion suddenly collected himself.  "Macavity, eh?"

"Macavity does not exist.  It's an excuse, a fake character to pin things on."

"More like an overused alias."  Carmelita noted that his ears were ticking, with a nervous twitch into his tail, although he'd almost recovered his deadpan.  "Once in a while someone seriously uses it, but the last individual to do so has been dead ten years."

"Do we have any information on anyone else using that alias more recently?"  Carmelita was starting to realize that she might've pushed herself too hard trying to mimic Cooper, and the ankle she'd landed on last was feeling pretty wretched.  

"Nothing but the typical attempts at dodging a conviction.", Nalphyr said.  

"Something is up, and the only lead we have right now is Cooper.  This was taped, correct?"  

Inigo brushed his spines back, trying to get back some dignity.  "Yes...well, over half of it was in view of the security cameras."

"Then we have some evidence that Cooper didn't go past the area where the fight occurred in the course of stealing the stone?"

"It won't stand in court.  Not without more proof that there was a second person involved that wasn't affiliated with Cooper."  Hyperion flicked off his sunglasses, cleaning them with a dustcloth from his pocket.  

"Then it's time we went back to Jotunheim.  The Ringtail's our best lead."

"I'm telling you, this isn't my bag - there's no way I'll be able to pull this off...", Murray whispered into the com, in a bottom storage area of the ferry to Jotunheim, dressed in an expertly counterfeit guard's uniform.

"I'd go myself, but I need access to the computer systems in the van to be able to hack the Jotunheim systems once a link can be established - the interface computer is quite nice, but definitely not up to a task of this magnitude.", was the reply from Bentley, on the coast of the Hague, already hacking to fabricate a personnel file for Murray.

"Alright...if you're sure about this..."  A klaxon sounded on deck, and Murray jumped and ran for the deck to be on the surface for review when the ferry landed.  Other newly transferred guards were lined up haphazardly, few of them with their attention on the island.  

            A tall, gaunt hyena in a perfectly kept uniform stepped off the gangplank to the dock, flanked by two armed wolfhounds in similarly immaculate dress.  He scanned the line of new transfers in distaste, shaking his head.  "Line up!", he snapped, and in an instant there was order among the recruits.  Murray stiffened with the others; at least he didn't stand out - the rest of them looked as scared shitless as he was.

            The two wolfhounds stayed on either side of the gangplank, as the hyena stalked up and down the line, sizing up the transfers.  "Do you know where you are?"

            "Jotunheim prison, sir!", came from a twitchy weasel on the end of the line.

            "Correct.  You are at the only maximum security prison for international felons on the western hemisphere. The criminals held here are the worst of the worst worldwide.  Past these gates, you will be dealing with mafia bosses, drug lords, petty dictators, and the greatest criminal masterminds in recent history.  I will be your commanding officer; my name is Ryan Wakefield, but to you, I am Sir.  There are no staff here in any capacity that are not also trained and qualified guards.  I catch you slipping up, and you will relearn the definition of Hell.  The inmates catch you slipping up, and you'll wish it was just Hell.  Am I clear?"  He stopped, glaring over his shoulder at the line.

"Yes sir!" came in unison from the entire line.  

"Very good.  Tristam Ford?"

"Sir?"  The weasel leaned forward out of line.  

"You're on switchboard, north tower."  Ryan pointed, and the weasel scrambled off the gangplanks.  

"Darren Green?"  He paced back along the line.  A big sheepdog saluted.  "You're with the cleaning crew; the gate guards'll give you directions."  The dog trotted off.  "Frederick Gray?"  

Murray blinked, recognized his alias for this job, and saluted overzealously, almost knocking his glasses off.  "Sir!"

Ryan stopped in front of him.  "Electrician."  He glanced at Murray, then at his clipboard, and then the oddest expression quirked onto his face - Murray couldn't tell if he was bewildered, annoyed, or happy.  "I don't bloody believe this..."  It dawned on Murray that this was not a good reaction, all things considered, and if he didn't move now, he probably wasn't going to get the chance.  

Ryan lifted a hand as if he was about to say something, but before he could say it, Murray was off down the gangplank, moving far faster than anyone would believe someone his size could move.  The wolfhounds took off after him while Ryan was standing on deck with the same odd expression.  The binoc-u-com crackled back on.  "Keep moving!  I just found a record from the daemon program that Carmelita sent them an e-mail predicting that we were going to break Sly out soon, and instructing them to watch for us!  If you turn left just past the gate, you'll get into a maintenance area where you'll be able to move around after they cut off the hallgates in twenty four point six seconds!" The main gates slammed shut just behind him, and he ducked his head and ran through a hail of tranqs and bullets, wishing he had Sly for covering fire.  

            He bulled past a doberman in uniform, barely making it to the other side of the hallgate before it closed. "This is it - if you can just hook the interface device I gave you up to one of the door locks or a terminal, I can get full access and try to powerdown the system."

            One of the wolfhounds trotted back, rifle slung over one shoulder.  "He's in the southeast maintenance area; we've lost visuals, but there's twelve personnel there who're already searching.  Should we go to high alert?"

            "Keep Amber for now.   As long as the ferry's guarded, he's not going anywhere.  Assist the search; I'll alert Inspector Fox and keep an eye on Cooper myself."  He walked easily off the deck onto the island proper.

            Sly was on his third run of pacing, which he'd spaced out between four periods playing with the superball.  He'd made four hundred circuits of the cell, and his record with the ball was fifteen bounces off various surfaces before catching it.  He'd determined the line of view for the cameras, and plotted out where the infrared beams were, as well as the pressure plate traps in the hall, the impressive network of infrared devices there, and the twenty seven hall cameras as well.  He'd determined that he had his own personal trio of guards posted next to him, that they worked six hour shifts in overlapping rounds, and he'd pegged which of them were the supervisors, and what weapons each of them had; he'd already started sizing up approaches if it came to a fight.  So far, he had yet to figure out a way out of the cell that didn't involve some kind of disaster messing with the security systems.  He was hoping for a disaster named Bentley, but was still scraping his brain for another option.  

            The ferret that was the first cycle supervisor walked by, glancing in.  "Don't you ever sleep?"

            "Maybe."  While he was standing still, Sly caught his name - Garret - and an insignia of a computer tech.  

            Garret shook his head and walked away.  The second shift supervisor was already in the watchroom next door - a dour jackal that seemed perpetually followed by a dark cloud of gloom.  

            Two minutes passed and there was a hiccup in the pattern - a tall hyena with the highest rank insignia he'd seen yet, who pulled a chair out into the hall and sat, watching him intently.  His nametag read "Ryan", and he had both a stun pistol similar to Carmelita's and a heavy revolver.  Cooper paced a couple more times, then sat down and pulled out the superball again. 

            "There something I should know about?"

            "Eh?"  One of the hyena's ears swiveled around.

            "Is it normal for the guy in charge to park outside the door of an inmate?"  One, two, three, four ricochets with the ball; he caught it out of midair.

            "Nothing you need to concern yourself with.  I simply believe in keeping an active hand on things."

            Three, four, five, six.  "Whatever.  Any word yet on the trial?"  Seven, eight, nine.

            "The World Court is handling it, so as to avoid argument over where to extradite you."  

            Ten, eleven, and he caught it.  "World court, eh?  Haven't been to the Hague yet.  Hear they've got quite an import industry."  Ryan almost didn't believe it, but there were the beginnings of a cocky smirk on the thief.  

            The place went pitch black suddenly, and there was the clanking of all the locks disengaging and the hiss of the plexiglass shield on Sly's cell shutting.  Ryan darted to manually close the cutoff door, and as it latched, the emergency power system kicked in and the lights came back up.

            The cell was empty.  

            "That's it, high alert, I want Cooper found!"

*****

            What, did you not expect him to pull off an escape? ;P.  My original plan had been to place the chapter break *after* the jailbreak was finished, but it turned out to be a bit longer and more complicated than I'd planned, and I think I've had enough delays on updating all of my fics without waiting to update this.  (Especially seeing as how this is my most reviewed fic ever…)


	5. Art of Not Being Seen

Short update while I collect my thoughts for the rest of the prison break chapter for…..will explain in a sec.

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The plane was coming in for a landing at Jotunheim when the power flickered off for a minute.

"Ten to one Cooper's involved.", Hyperion muttered.

"He'd better be staying put - he's our lead.", Carmelita said, staring out the window.

"I've got Jotunheim on the radio, they're patching Wakefield through.", the pilot yelled back; the three cops scrambled for the cockpit, crowding the jackrabbit.

"This is Wakefield."

"Inspector Fox speaking - what is your situation?"

"High alert. We hit powerdown for half a second and Cooper's not in his cell. We have a definite positive that Murray is on the island somewhere, but no sign of Bentley just yet. Cooper's still on the island, and nothing's getting off till he's found."

"We'll land and assist."

"Thanks. I'm not letting this one get away." The radio clicked off.

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Ryan stalked to the only door out of the cellblock, standing still for the retinal scan that was the only way the door would open. The small charter jet was on the tarmac of the main courtyard, two other guards observing as the pilot opened the door and released the folding stairs. He nodded to each of the officers as they came out, the pilot staying in the plane.

"Fox, Hyperion, Nalphyr. We should have him cornered; he had his own cell block area, with the entrance doors on retinal scan."

Carmelita's ear ticked. "Has anyone entered or left that area since the powerdown?"

"Only me, just now."

"Then we should assume he has run of the place."

Ryan blinked, taking a slightly wounded air with one ear dropping back. "You think he slipped out behind me somehow?"

"You'd be surprised what he's capable of."

The hyena's eyes narrowed and he paused, scanning the courtyard. "Alright, so we're going to have to organize this. I'm going to be in the control room, coordinating the respose to the jailbreak to see if we can catch both of them."

"I'd like to check the cell; I might be able to track where he is from there."

He nodded to Carmelita. "There's an intercom next to the door I came from; it'll patch you to the guard room there, they'll let you in. You two?"

Carmelita nodded curtly and headed for the door.

"How did Murray get on the island?", Hyperion asked.

"Ferry; he came in with faked records as an electrician."

"Then one of us should look for Murray while another checks the ferry for Bentley and the van."

"What about your plane?" Ryan waved at the charter jet.

"Jason's been working with Carmelita for a while; he'll stay with the plane, and won't open it for anyone but one of us." Sure enough, the jackrabbit was already folding up the stairs and locking the plane. "Just in case, it might be a good idea for your guards to stay there."

"I'll take care of the ferry; the turtle should be simple to corner, and without him giving warnings, the other two should be easier to catch."

"Alright, Frank, you take Nalphyr to the docks." Ryan waved to one of the wolfhounds, who saluted; Nalphyr nodded and peeled off with the guard. "Hyperion, the area Murray's locked down in is past the control center, so I'll take you there."

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As the three officers talked away, Sly couldn't help but grin like a fool, leaning invisibly against the nose of Carmelita's plane. He'd lost some of the fur on his tail when the plexiglass seal had come down, but after that, he'd just followed two feet in Ryan's footsteps, letting the warden open doors for him.

He could've snuck onto Carmelita's plane and stolen it right there, but there was still something he needed to retrieve; he wasn't leaving until he knew where his cane was, and right now, following Ryan and Hyperion to the command center seemed like his best bet.

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	6. Intermission and Technical Difficulties

Otherwise known as, the Author explains herself. Meheh.

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Time stopped on the plane tarmac of Jotunheim prison, and a phoenix floated down on glittering wings to land on the plane wing beside Sly's head, tail plumes curving back along the fuselage. She was graceful. She was shiny.

She was the size of the average Thanksgiving turkey.

The phoenix shot a wounded glare at her human self at the keyboard, and turned to Sly, who was unaffected by the time stop.

"Sly?"

"Yes'm?"

She waved a wing at where the pilot was locking up the plane. "You're supposed to be sneaking on the plane so you and Murray can steal it." Pulling a sheaf of papers out of nowhere with one talon, she waved the Almighty Outline at him. "It's in the script."

"Oh yeah. That. Decided against it."

Her crest dipped as her feathers slicked down more. "Decided against it?"

"Yeah, I still need to get my cane. I won't go anywhere without it, and you aaare the one that's a stickler for keeping things in character, right?" One ear ticked back, he sidled a bit closer to the phoenix, who mrrr'ed annoyance.

"But your cane is -" She stopped herself.

Sly perked up. "Is where?"

"That's out of character information." She took a dramatic, insulted pose.

"C'mon, you can tell me…I'll figure it out anyway, you know that."

"Sore wa himitsu desu."

"You're not Xelloss."

"It's still a secret."

He stared narrowly at the phoenix, as if plotting something - like the easiest way to restrain and interrogate a relatively small avian - then decided against it. "Besides, if I take the plane now, it'll attract attention too fast, and that'll blow the scenes with the officers inside the prison, I still need to fetch Murray, and didn't you have scribbled out some scene with the control tower when you first came up with this on Nyquil?"

Sure, sure, bring up that she'd technically been stoned on cold medication when she'd come up with the fic. "Uhm…well…uhm…I have plans to get to!"

Paging through the outline that was now no longer in the phoenix's claw, Sly turned a page to show it to the camera, demonstrating that a few pages past the outline of the jailbreak, most of it was blank and filled with random chibi-doodles.

"You're not supposed to do that!!"

"Saaay, if I've got the outline. .." A huge grin hit Sly's face as he started studying the outline for the notes on his cane's location.

"Gah! Roll the cameras, get this going again!" The phoenix launched off the wing of the plane, snatching the script.


End file.
